Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

Senator Ryan has done a good job of putting forward his own proposal and giving my answer to it. He summarised the arguments succinctly and I do not propose to go back over them. I certainly would not favour the idea of this being a reserve function of the members of a local authority because that would be a recipe for all sorts of vested interests preventing any licences being issued.

On the points Senator Ryan made on the section being wide enough to allow a local authority to make its views known, I will undertake for the Senator to have a look at this again to see whether I can accommodate the views in some way but I do not want to give a false impression that I will open this up to make it a reserve function. In the other House I will consider something that might put in the words "including a local authority" or something like that because it will not defeat the purpose of the Bill. As I stated, I would have my face set against any procedure where the members of a local authority would be able to delay an application for a bus licence ad infinitum because that would defeat the purpose of the Bill.